The Little Princess
by Valkyrien
Summary: It's not a dream, and it's not a nightmare, but fairytales don't equip a gal to deal with the differences...


**_DISCLAIMER: THIS STORY SHOULDN'T EVEN HAVE ONE AS IT'S QUITE OBVIOUS NOONE ON FFN OWNS ANY OF THE CRAP THEY WRITE ABOUT. THAT'S WHY IT'S CALLED FAN FICTION. BUT FOR THE SAKE OF CONTINUITY AND HABIT, I WILL ADMIT THAT I DON'T OWN ANYTHING EITHER._**

**_

* * *

_**

**_~The Little Princess~_**

When she was a little girl, she used to dream of castles, and princesses in towers, and evil monsters getting in the way of her Prince's attempts to rescue her, much like any other little girl. But there was a glaring difference between her childish dreaming and that of other little ones'. She cannot remember ever having dreamt a happy ending. Ever. In fact, she does not recall a single dream where the princess and her Prince were united in their love. Not even once. Always, there would be monsters, terrifying and vicious, pulling the princess out of the arms of her Prince or preventing his coming in dastardly ways. In some dreams the monster pleaded with the princess to stay, and when she ran the monster would be enraged and wreak a terrible vengeance on her poor Prince. She decided early on that perhaps it was best to seek out a Prince of one's own instead of waiting around to be rescued on a whim.

Then, she grew up, and she saw all the false, would-be Princes of the world, and she didn't for a moment regret not wanting to be rescued. In fact, she preferred it that way. She went to work in a castle full of monsters, partly to avoid all the bothersome Princelings who were not worthy of her hand, and partly to understand why, sometimes, the monster had pleaded instead of roared. And somewhere along the way she forgot that the original script held a happy ending, and so she built walls around herself without meaning to, like the briars that kept Sleeping Beauty hidden all those years. She forgot that she was meant to be looking for that elusive Prince, and locked herself in the tower with her monsters, telling herself that she was content enough with that. But because she'd never heard a story like that, she'd never dreamt that her Prince might be hidden in the gallery of fiends around her, so when she found him, she was wholly unprepared.

He could only unlock and unchain the bonds that she herself had placed around her heart, he told her. Cruel misfortune meant that they were now both trapped in the castle, she by unwise choice and he by evil chance. He could not free them both – she would have to help him. Only with his Princess by his side could they both abscond; he from the physical prison and she from the shackles that bound her poor, conformed heart. And she had never heard a story where the Prince needed his Princess to help _him_, and so she was all the more confused and frightened, but he told her that if she would only smile for him, he might just find the strength she needed to be who she must be – who she truly was. And that it would make her fairer than any other.

And he warned her that beyond the castle walls, far greater than any evil she might encounter within them, was the greatest monster of all. One who would try to take her from her Prince, the one who was responsible for his suffering, his imprisonment, but that he would not allow them to be seperated now that he had found her, and that she must trust in their love which would surely withstand any lies the monster might tell her. And she understood, for this was something she could recognise, the cruelty of the beasts around them who did not wish them well and who would seek to destroy their love, and so she tempered her devotion and hardened her heart against all but him in preparation for their great escape.

So the little Princess – as she now realised she had always been, now that her Prince had opened her eyes to all that was real and true in the world – planned and plotted and at last she was ready to free them both. They stole away in the dead of night, her hand clasped tightly in his as they melted into the darkness with a vow never to return to the wretched place of their misery. And she was happy, oh she was so happy to be free, and her Prince rejoiced with her, but again he warned his Princess, of monsters, of those who would not want him to be with his new-found love, who would try to steal her from him. His little Princess knew then that she would have to stand by his side – he could not protect them both from the wrongs of the world forever, and she would need to fight with him to overcome the evils ahead, for they were so misunderstood, and they could not help but be persecuted for having discovered true love.

And under way, the little Princess discovered another truth – that the evil they were united against was grey and bland, colourless and _normal_, so far removed from the splendour of their love, and the monster they were fighting was great and powerful, but just.

And the monster and the little Princess met in the battefield, and he told her to look again at her dashing, smiling Prince, who took such good care of her, who had shown her the truth and given her wings as lovely as she was. To look again at why he was fighting, and at what, and to think back to why he had been locked up against his will by the monster with the other rogues. And it became clear to the little Princess that her darling Prince, who so cherished her, who so loved to make her smile and to see her laugh, was the greatest and most evil monster of all, and she found that it did not matter. And that perhaps that was why her childish fantasies had never ended with the Princess escaping the monster and being rescued by a dark knight in armour. Because her Prince had been waiting for her in the mire of the castle of drab, dull grey all along, waiting for her to realise that he was there for _her_, arms open to her. And she saw that all her dreams had come true after all, and that it was not something to fear, for the endings had ever been happy ones, it had only taken his pleas to realise...

* * *


End file.
